He landed on his feet in a sense, as this spectacular occurrence was part of the reason why he soon ended up on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine and earned him even greater worldwide renown.Īustria's Hermann Maier - "The Herminator" - was nearly terminated by a fall in the men's downhill at the 1998 Nagano Winter Games, but recovered to win the giant slalom and super-G titles ©Getty Images The Herminator, however, was unterminated, eventually leaving the course under his own power. The race was on Friday 13th, and Maier was skiing fourth - a number which represents death in Japanese culture. If you believed in portents, they were not good. The 25-year-old former bricklayer - whose awesome size and power earned him the nickname of The Herminator - looked as if he had hit a wall just 17 seconds into his opening run in the men’s downhill, flying off the sunlit course at a turn which caused problems to a succession of racers, landing partially on his head and then tumbling head-over-heels several times before crashing through two layers of safety netting and coming to a rest, prostrate on his front, 125 metres further on. One of the most well-known occurrences of this grisly phenomenon took place at the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano and involved the dominant figure in men’s racing at the time, Austria’s Hermann Maier. Such falls come with the territory in Olympic Alpine skiing events.
Eeeeek #Beijing2022WinterOlympics /4J1890T2GC- Andy Mullen February 7, 2022 She was later described as being "alert and responsive" by a US team spokesperson. The 24-year-old from Denver, making her Olympic debut, was treated by four paramedics and taken from the course on a stretcher after colliding with the penultimate gate and screaming in pain at what appeared to be a bad leg injury. If that was a shock, there was also horror as, after one relatively unharmful fall by Tessa Worley of France, twice giant slalom world champion, there was a far more serious one involving Nina O’Brien of the United States.
Shortly afterwards, Sweden’s Sara Hector lived up to her billing as one of the favourites for the women’s giant slalom on a day when her biggest rival, defending champion Mikaela Shiffrin of the United States, was disqualified after missing a gate on the first run. One of the blue riband Winter Olympic events, alpine skiing, got underway at the Beijing 2022 Games today, offering its traditional, potent mix of heady triumph and calamitous adversity.įor openers at the Yanqing National Alpine Skiing Centre, Beat Feuz added his name to the list of Swiss victors in the Olympic men’s downhill, joining Bernhard Russi, Pirmin Zurbriggen and Didier Défago.Īnd Olympic history was made as the man in second place, 41-year-old Johan Clarey of France, became the oldest man to win an alpine skiing medal at the Games, beating a record previously held by Bode Miller of the United States, who earned bronze in the men’s super-G at the Sochi 2014 Games, aged 36.
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